I thought about calling this blog “closure,” until it came to me that most people equate closure with “the end,” and I realized that there is no end to what I’m writing about but there is a point where one can, and must sever attachments.  That’s what I’m writing about; the end of attachment and why that is so important.

In February 1991, Operation Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm.  One of the little noted events that followed that action was Vietnam Veterans overrunning VA Hospitals – not in protest but as patients – patients suffering from PTSD. 

I didn’t check into a VA hospital, though it crossed my mind.  Instead, I ran an ad in my local newspaper.  The ad read, “I served in Vietnam.  If you were there and would like to talk about it meet me at the Best Western…” and I gave the date and time.  That ad led to the founding of Vietnam Veterans Southern Command.

Almost from the beginning, a main topic at Southern Command was returning to Vietnam.  As the conversation became more serious, six of us decided we would do it.  We set a date and began making plans.  As various deadlines drew nearer - passport applications, ticket deposits, tour scheduling, etc. - the number committed to the trip grew smaller.

When the Thai Airways flight left LA, in early October, 1993, I was the only member of Southern Command on board.  I was glad to be alone in a way that I’m not sure I can describe, but I’ll take a shot at it.  For almost two years, I’d spent a lot of time talking about Vietnam, my involvement there, and how it had affected me.  That followed almost thirty years of not talking about it at all.  Since I had never talked about it, I wondered if, after my long silence, I was just making up a story about the Vietnam War’s place in my life.  I was going back to find out and if it did turn out to be a lie, I didn’t want anyone around to see my reaction.  That’s why I was glad to be alone.

I spent a sleepless night in Bangkok before boarding the flight for Saigon (I know it’s Ho Chi Minh City to most people – I’m just not one of them).  We barely hit cruising altitude before we began our decent into Saigon.  Our final approach was long and low.  As we passed over miles and miles of rice paddies I had an overwhelming feeling that I was finally coming home.  Before the wheels touched the runway at Tan Son Nhut Airport all self-doubt slipped away; I knew that Vietnam was the most real story in my life.

I had arranged for a tour guide/translator and a military guide.  I had high hopes of getting inside Camp Bearcat, my home for the sixteen months I served in Vietnam.  That’s why I was accompanied by General Diem, a certified military guide, and former four-star Viet Cong General.  I watched General Diem talk to the guards at the camp, and then their commanding officer, and finally the commanding officer of the entire base, which is a training facility for the Army.  In spite of his intense effort on my behalf, I didn’t get through the gate.

However, General Diem took me to other places and taught me things that were far more important than revisiting Camp Bearcat.  First he took me to his veteran’s group – Vietnam Veterans of Saigon – where I was sworn in as a full-fledged member (at the first meeting of Vietnam Veterans Southern Command, after the trip, I told everyone about General Diem, and we voted him into our group).  On my third day in Vietnam, my guide and General Diem took me to Chu Chi.  Chu Chi was the first home of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division in Vietnam. 

Chu Chi was a poor location for the Twenty-Fifth, because it was centered over a Viet Cong underground facility that in places operated on four levels.  The VC compound at Chu Chi had existed since their war with France and at times had housed as many as 25,000 troops.

When we figured out that the VC we were fighting lived under one of our major headquarters, the Twenty-fifth moved to Camp Bearcat and the Viet Cong headquarters at Chu Chi was blanket bombed by B-52s of the Strategic Air Command, based in Bangkok.   Thousands of Viet Cong died and their bodies remained entombed until the war ended.  Then, in spite of being almost bankrupt as a result of the war and subsequent economic embargo, the Vietnamese Government found the funds to excavate the ruins at Chu Chi and recover, identify, and bury with honor, all those who died there.

General Diem and I stood in silence, on the edge of that huge memorial cemetery.  When I was able to speak, I managed to ask him, through our guide/translator, why the government undertook such a monumental task.  He turned to me, and in very broken English, which I understood perfectly, said, “War is not over until everyone is accounted for.”

I think about General Diem often.  He is probably the most unassuming, impersonal, yet compassionate man I’ve ever met.  And, in spite of his small stature, he is one of the most powerful.  General Diem has accounted for everyone and everything that matters in his life - that means he is no longer attached to or run by things that happened in the past.  Until we account for each of those things in our life, they run us.  We're kidding ourselves to believe otherwise. 

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